Today my children decided to decorate our home for the Fall season. I guess they got tired of waiting for me. Well, they certainly didn’t do it the way I would’ve. It most definately doesn’t look like a page out of a magazine like I wish. Notice all of the accumulated stuff on top of our arcaic TV? Notice the Mother’s Day gifts that never made it further than the available open space at the time? If you notice the dust, don’t tell me.

When I discovered my children trying to bless me by taking care of the decorating, I was tempted to come back later when they were not looking and re-do it. It still wouldn’t look like that perfect magazine I wish that it would, but at least I could attempt to organize it, spread out the deocrations into the spots I envision they look good or something like that.

Instead I decided to let the love flow and leave it as it is. My children desired to bless me so I will accept the gift exactly as they did it. I’ll take kids with character over a perfect home anyday. Our home is full of five busy children and we don’t pretend to live here by having it perfect for anyone who enters our home. We really live here and we do the best we can to keep it up. I find it laughable that I am even saying any of this, but I have come a long way because I am a perfectionist at heart. God knew I needed to live this life exactly as I am to remind me about what is important to Him. I’m pretty sure I am not going to stand before God in heaven some day and be held accountable for how clean my home was, but I am very sure that I will be accountable for the relationships He gave me to be a steward of.

So if you come to our home, don’t expect it to look perfect because, frankly, we are not perfect. But we do promise to welcome you into our home and love you like our own. If you don’t like our cobwebs because I just can’t seem to figure out when I’ll ever get to a “deep clean” in the midst of our busy schedules, then please come on over and bring your cleaning supplies with you! I promise I won’t be offended because then you’ll be just like family.